Dai Young has called for a 'common sense rugby approach' to be applied to disciplinary hearings following the 'ridiculous' nature of Nathan Hughes' offence.

The Wasps director of rugby believes his England star acted in self-defence when striking Gloucester's Lewis Ludlow in the last minute of their Gallagher Premiership match at the Ricoh Arena a fortnight ago.

The Welshman went as far to say the incident didn't warrant a penalty, let alone the citing and subsequent six-week suspension that was given to Hughes following Wednesday's reconvened disciplinary hearing in Coventry.

Out of our hands

"I thought it was ridiculous," said Young. "The reality of it is, it wasn't something the citing officer recognised himself.

Nathan Hughes

"Gloucester asked the citing officer to have a look at it, he had a look at it and he thought it was worth citing. We disagreed but it is out of your hands.

"I think everybody will look at that and think it's not a penalty, let alone a citing. Did he make contact with the face? Yes he did. It was a pushing action. It's very hard to see how it's acceptable for someone to jump on top of you when you're on the floor, and you are the one that gets cited."

Hughes' suspension rules him out of the majority of England's Autumn internationals as well as Wasps' first two Heineken Champions Cup games, including Saturday's must-win match with Bath, and the Gallagher Premiership match at Franklin's Gardens against Northampton Saints on November 17.

The punishment for striking/punching someone in the head is set by RFU guidelines at a mid-entry six-week entry point.

No place for thugs

While sympathetic of disciplinary panel members and fully supportive of eradicating 'thuggish' behaviour on the pitch, former British Lion Young would like to see the system allow for more discretion and mitigation when dealing with incidents like Hughes' case.

"When they get cited, there's no discretion in the panel, there's no looking at mitigating circumstances," he said.

A screengrab of the incident involving Nathan Hughes, grounded, and Lewis Ludlow of Gloucester

"We all want to take the thugs out of the game. We all want to clamp down on things that hurt players or take players out of the game, potentially, we're all behind that.

"Nobody wants to give an avenue for anyone committing foul play to get out of it. That's the most important thing to say first.

"But anybody looking at that incident, was it a sending off? It's ridiculous. The guy jumps on top of him, pushes an elbow in his throat, Nathan pushes him off.

"The reality is the citing body looks at it, he's made contact with the face, no outs. They can't take anything else into consideration. Six weeks."

He added: "I feel for the panel, I don't think they've got anywhere to go on it and it is what it is.

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"There's a few more incidents where I do think there needs to be more of a common sense approach to it.

"I understand that's difficult but I do believe that's something that needs looking at, not in every case but in a lot of cases I think there's room for a more common sense rugby approach."

Old dinosaur

Hughes was punished separately for Tweeting 'what a joke' following his first hearing on Wednesday, October 10. His two-week ban runs concurrently (at the same time as) his six-week ban for striking Ludlow.

While not a Twitter user himself, Young sees the benefits of the social media platform but is also acutely aware of its pitfalls there were laid bare by Hughes - who has since deactivated his account.

Nathan Hughes

"I'm an old dinosaur, I haven't got an account, for obvious reasons," said Young. "But I think most clubs will be pushing that aspect because it's a good way to engage with supporters and so on.

"There's definitely positive sides to it, but people need to be careful.

"But they get given all this advice, once it's up there, doesn't matter if you take it down 30 seconds later, someone's seen it. That's the case with this.

"He's put his hands up, it was done out of frustration, and a knee-jerk reaction. By the time he'd thought about it and took it down, it was too late.

"We're all human beings and we all make mistakes, we can all be a little hot-headed and shoot from the hip a little bit, we've all done that and are guilty of that.

"On this occasion it's hurt him, he's put his hands up but he has to pay the price for it."